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A small 'YOU are not IT' moment.

‘Mind and body drop away’. ‘Letting go.’ These kinds of phrases I have read or heard from studying this practice of zazen have sometimes left me quite confused as to what to do or which way to go. The more I thought, the more I knew that this ‘thinking’ was opposite to the essence of zazen practice (Jundo and Taigu say this in every teaching they have done and I have read or heard!!),BUT it still continues, like a little background programme you forgot was pre-installed on your computer but slows down whatever process you want to run.I guess our natural tendency to conceptualise what such phrases mean set off these mini background ‘thinking programmes’?Well something has happened for me as a result of all these years of sitting doing nothing, supposedly for no particular reason. I found myself this morning just feeding the chickens and watching the sunrise through some heavy looking clouds, before realising that I wasn’t actually thinking about what I couldn’t understand or was supposed to understand. In fact I was quite happy knowing that I didn’t know. Now this was not a thought realisation, but more an awareness realisation that seemed to arise with just watching the sun. I guess it is just accepting my ignorance and being happy that I am not ignorant of my ignorance as much as I had once been. It was such a simple moment, but it seemed to shut down many of those mini background thoughts that I cannot understand why I hadn’t realised this before? But before I set off another set of background thoughts I will be happy in this small moment.

I just felt like sharing this in gratitude for all of the posts from which I have learnt so much and to being part of Treeleaf. Thanks, in Gassho to all.

Very good sign Heisoku, we sometimes have these moments when we totally let go of the gripping action, the will to fathom and to turn our fresh life into thoughts patterns. For guys like us, tis very hard because all our life evolves around knowing and keeping an eye on everything. Now, please, don t turn this even into a knowing experience, forget about it all together. Come back to what you are simply doing. The realization of how our mind is confused is the the alpha and omega of our path.

yet.. not knowing isn't anti-knowing. Knowing is relative and partial and no problem. If knowing is clung to and made the ground, then it is a problem. But if groundless not-knowing is the ground.. then knowing is fine... and doesn't touch not knowing. Not knowing in opposition to knowing, or in fear of knowing, isn't liberation, because it avoids knowing instead of getting to the root of it.

Sorry for the wordiness. and not sure if that makes sense. Gassho, kojip.

美道 代山 Bido Daizan

As a trainee priest, please take any commentary by me on matters of the Dharma with a pinch of salt.

yet.. not knowing isn't anti-knowing. Knowing is relative and partial and no problem. If knowing is clung to and made the ground, then it is a problem. But if groundless not-knowing is the ground.. then knowing is fine... and doesn't touch not knowing. Not knowing in opposition to knowing, or in fear of knowing, isn't liberation, because it avoids knowing instead of getting to the root of it.

Sorry for the wordiness. and not sure if that makes sense. Gassho, kojip.

Kojip,

It makes perfect sense and thank you for your words. I think "not knowing" can often be misunderstood as "ignorance is bliss", which we certainly wouldn't endorse around here!

As you point out, clinging to that "knowledge" is often as big a cause a suffering than anything else.

I think "not knowing" can often be misunderstood as "ignorance is bliss",

So true Dosho.

I think Dogen clarifies this for me in Shobogenzo:One Bright Pearl in a commentary on Gensha's “All the universe is one bright pearl. What need is there to understand it?”when he writes;

'Yet both you and I, not knowing what one bright pearl is and what it is not, have had a great many thoughts and non-thoughts about it which have come to form positive notions. Yet, when thanks to Gensha’s words it is made known and clarified that even our bodies and minds are one bright pearl, then the mind is not I.'
Gassho.